China’s entrepreneurs brace for credit crunch

Like a boxer slimming down for a fight, Li Zhongjian is shrinking his 20-year-old business manufacturing cigarette lighters to brace for a credit crunch he sees looming over China’s entrepreneurs.

Li’s workforce in the southeastern city of Wenzhou has shrunk by half to 300 this year and he isn’t replacing employees who leave. He said he used to borrow money but is preparing to do without credit that might no longer be available as regulators try to force Chinese banks to cool a lending boom they worry could race out of control.

“The authorities’ shifting policies are not offering stable surroundings for businesspeople to be confident to work,” said Li. “I won’t try to get loans for my business any more. I’ll wait and see how the market and policies are doing. I won’t invest, either.”

A cash shortage that hit China’s credit markets this month was the first shock wave from what analysts say could be Beijing’s most drastic clampdown on credit in two decades. The central bank has called for tighter lending standards, which should reduce risk but is likely to reduce financing for a private sector that generates China’s new jobs and wealth.

China will benefit in the long run from a safer financial system, but the short-term cost could be a painful squeeze on entrepreneurs. Some say a recovery that already was faltering could weaken further.

“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, research director of J Capital Research in Beijing.

“Rates are shooting up in the private market and regular commercial loans are being pulled back very quickly,” she said. “All industrial businesses here run on credit, so as soon as you close that down, they just stop producing and selling stuff.”

The government has yet to say how extensive the controls will be or what it might do to ensure lending for producers who Chinese leaders have said they want to support.

Some branches of two of China’s biggest lenders — Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China — have temporarily suspended lending to businesses and individuals, the business magazine Caixin reported, citing sources at the banks.

The credit clampdown hits amid uncertainty about whether China’s lackluster recovery from its deepest downturn since the 2008 global crisis is stalling.

Economic growth decelerated to 7.7 percent in the first quarter from 7.9 percent the previous quarter. May retail sales fell short of forecasts and export growth slowed. An HSBC Corp. survey of manufacturers showed June activity fell to a nine-month low and was contracting.

Tighter credit controls could cause growth to dip below 7 percent in coming quarters, according to Nomura economist Zhiwei Zhang. That would be China’s weakest performance since the early 1990s.

Harder times for Chinese entrepreneurs could have global repercussions. China’s slowdown already is depressing demand for iron ore, copper and other commodities, crimping the flood of money that drove a boom for Australia, Brazil and other suppliers. Demand for industrial components from Southeast Asia and factory equipment from the United States and Europe could be hurt if credit-starved manufacturers put off purchases.

The crackdown is part of a broader effort by communist leaders to shift China to slower, more sustainable growth based on domestic consumption after a decade of explosive expansion driven by exports, investment and cheap credit. The ruling party’s growth target this year is 7.5 percent, down by almost half from 2007′s staggering 14.2 percent.

“The episode is arguably the strongest sign yet that the leadership is willing to suffer short-term economic pain if necessary to achieve more sustainable growth,” said Capital Economics analyst Mark Williams in a report.

A key goal appears to be to force banks to reduce their role in channeling money into unregulated, profitable and risky underground lending that is a pillar of support for entrepreneurs who cannot get formal loans from state banks.

Money for informal lending came at first from individuals who wanted a better return on their savings but much of it now comes from state banks. They hid the lending from regulators, who worry they have taken on undisclosed risks in the event of defaults.

Even before the credit squeeze, underground borrowers paid interest of up to 70 percent a year — more than 10 times the benchmark rate for formal loans. Estimates of outstanding loans run as high as 4 trillion yuan ($650 billion), or as much as 7 percent of China’s total credit.

Li, the entrepreneur in Wenzhou, said he borrowed from both state banks and informal lenders to expand his business. He said he paid 6 to 14 percent in annual interest for bank loans and up to 70 percent for underground loans.

“Is it possible to find any country whose interest rate is higher than China?” he said.

Communist leaders allowed informal lending to grow over the past decade to support entrepreneurs. But regulators began to worry after the 2008 global crisis when they found banks were putting their own money into informal lending, taking on unreported higher risks.